An Apple A Day
by Shannonigens
Summary: Can turn into a nasty addiction. A short story of a wastelander's first taste of fresh food. Actually better than it sounds.


**Author's Note: I got the idea for this when eating an apple in real-life at the same time as stealing an apple in-game. If you think about it, the only fresh foods are the ones in the science lab at Rivet City. How sad is that? Actually, I could be wrong, and maybe there's more produce somewhere, but I haven't come across any.**

**Also, have you ever read Hard Cover by BucklesInTheSun? Or Later Never Comes by Pheonicia? They're both pretty freakin' awesome, just so you know. Anything by Pheonicia is great. And Bad Seed was equally good, by Anne Apocalypse. I'm only saying that because they're some of my many favorites. And I think that deserves some recognition.**

**Please criticize, praise, or flame me, depending on how much you like this and how you feel at the moment. I know people have been reading; my stats don't lie to me. ****Thank you, and have a nice morning/noon/night!**

**Also, special thanks to my shift and F7 buttons for working as a nice thesaurus when combined. Without them, you would see many of the same words, over and over again.**

**Disclaimer: I am not the creator, writer, or owner of Fallout 3 or anything in it. No, wait, I do have that deed to the shack in Megaton so….no, wait, that's not what I meant. I'm not the creator of apples or carrots or potatoes either. But I do own some.**

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><p>It was as rare of a sight as a domesticated Deathclaw, and yet it was sitting in a place so common. If Misty had some, she would have kept it in a locked storage bin, and not sitting on a table in the science lab. People passed through there frequently; it was anybody's to look at.<p>

Misty knew better. She looked at it with loving eyes, as if it were fragile enough to be broken if stared at too hard.

She didn't know _what _it was. She just knew that it was uncommon in these parts of the world, and that you could eat it.

And she knew that she had to try some. Now.

There were a few of them that were orange, long and pointy at the ends with a little sprout of green hair at the top. Some were brown, about as long as Misty's hand and lumpy with randomly placed bumps. And then there were the red things, spherical and pillar-box red and surprisingly not made of blood. Misty didn't think there was anything else red in the Capital Wasteland but blood, and that was very common.

Maybe all the blood red took up everything else that was red. Misty didn't even see any red in the sky anymore.

There was too much blood and not enough of these red things. There was too much blood and not enough _anything._

Misty had once heard that botanist lady talk about these weird things on the table. She said they were fruits and vegetables. It sounded so nice just to say it; fruits and vegetables. It didn't sound right to just say fruits or just say vegetables, it had to be all in one fluid phrase; fruits and vegetables. Misty didn't know which ones were fruits and which ones were vegetables, but they all looked equally delicious.

And they looked so _clean. _Even better than purified water.

Misty wanted, no, _needed _some of these fruits and vegetables.

But she didn't know how she was going to get them.

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><p>An addiction can be cured. Its mostly a mental need, working with the physical need, making it so that you have no reason to stop and many reasons to keep on taking that Psycho. Or Buffout. Or, in most cases, Jet.<p>

Misty had seen many people cured of their addictions when she was working as an assistant to Doctor Preston. Many came in to buy drugs when Cindy was all out, the local junkie having beaten them to it. A few of them actually wanted to stop, to just be rid of the expensive habit. Others were persuaded by Preston into paying him to have it put to an end. This didn't include Paulie, who wouldn't be cured no matter how many people (which would be all the residents of Rivet City) told him that he needed to stop.

It was during that time that Misty saw people at their lowest point in life; vulnerable and desperate, slaving away all of their hours just for the brief euphoria that they had every time they took some Med-X or Jet.

Some people told Misty that it was a lot like love, but she wouldn't know, because she had never been in love with someone. They made it sound terrible, though.

If she was ever in love, she would probably be able to compare it to addiction. Misty had been addicted to one thing for years, one untreatable desire that she had never wanted to relieve herself of and had never really tried.

Stealing.

It was her drug and pleasure, her excitement and relaxation, her burden and blessing.

And it was going to get her some fruits and vegetables.

Mostly, Misty stole from A Quick Fix, snatching Med-X and Psycho off the shelves and slipping them in her pockets to sell to Doctor Preston, who had unknowingly been her fence for years. She would walk casually down the hallway at eleven, pick the lock on the door to the marketplace, and then slip in like a phantom and ghost along the walls in the shadows. She had originally tried to take guns from Flak 'n' Shrapnel, but they proved to be too heavy and loud. Eventually she learned to take weightless items, like drugs and ammo and such.

It was exciting and rewarding and _dangerous._

Misty couldn't think of a better use for it right now.

Scientists hardly ever slept, unhealthily addicted to the projects and experiments they toiled at daily. That made it simple and easy to steal from the unused bedroom, but made it a challenge to pocket something that was _right in the center of the room._

Even during the night all lights were on. There wouldn't even _be _any shadows to hide in.

Misty, personally, thought that the scientist were being greedy hogs. What's the point in working towards a better future if you're going to ruin everything in the present?

Scientists were selfish and careless at the same time; not sharing their fruits and vegetables and leaving them in the open for anyone to steal.

It was a bit of an insult to Misty.

She eventually decided that she would take the fruits and vegetables during the day, just to spit in the scientists' face. They wouldn't look so smart if they lost a table of fruits and vegetables out from underneath their noses. Misty's plan was a lot like pick pocketing; walk by the fruits and vegetables and take an inconspicuous swipe at them. Similar to pick pocketing, except that she was picking a table top.

She eagerly awaited the right day to steal the fruits and vegetables. All the food she ate suddenly tasted insipid and dead when compared to her ideas of the flavor of fruits and vegetables. Even mirelurk cakes held no special zest that she would want.

Misty finally got her chance when the man with the hoity-toity accent and the tenderfoot vault kid returned from a special trip. Misty acted like any citizen would: uninterested.

Everyone in the room seemed to know the significance of the return of the father and daughter, and they clustered near him as he announced his news. Even walked up to the group out of curiosity.

Misty wasn't dumb; she knew that she needed to grab the goods _fast. _

It made her a bit angry that the scientists would leave the precious fruits and vegetabes out in the open. They needed to be preserved.

She stepped lightly towards the table, fingers twitching in anticipation. Rubbing her palms on her tights, Misty licked her cracked lips and mentally counted to three, at which point she planned to snatch a few fruits and vegetables and high tail it out of there like there was no tomorrow. Of course, she couldn't _really_ do that, it would draw attention.

One,

Two,

And then the crowd of people in fancy lab coats shifted, and then began to walk towards the door. Misty bit her lip hard and jerked her hand back as if the table were full of radiation. Her hand slapped against her side, a bit loudly, she noticed, but nobody paid her any mind. Dr. Zimmer and his guard stood a few yards ahead, chatting about an android and the vault girl.

Misty had once filched a bottle of Buffout from Cindy while she stood right behind her. This would be a bit harder though, because Dr. Zimmer was most certainly not drunk.

She just had to reach out and grab it, easy-peasy. Misty felt the rush of excitement she always felt when thieving something important. Her addiction to stealing pushed her to grab the red fruit-or-vegetable and Misty did. She plucked two red things, one orange stick, and a bumpy brown lump. It took a great deal of self control to keep from taking all the fruits and vegetables, but years of stealing taught her that people would notice if suddenly all the food was missing from the table. She placed the food in a pack she had brought along.

Suddenly, the excitement hit her in one big blast of exhilaration, and Misty found herself beaming. She was going to try fruits and vegetables in a few minutes.

Misty nearly skipped to the empty room she and Paulie shared for their secret stashes. Paulie's cabinet was filled with emergency Psycho, while Misty's held a few pick-pocketed keys to a couple choice rooms and storage cabinets in and on the boat and drugs, if she ever needed to sell something for caps immediatly. The two had a deal; Misty would not take Paulie's key to his room and Paulie would not take any of the drugs that she kept as well. Both had also been sworn to secrecy about the room and filing cabinets.

But Misty soon realized that her fruits and vegetables were too much of a secret for even Paulie to see. She came to a sudden halt in the middle of the hall and did a 180 turn, and then started heading toward the hall she had previously past.

There was one room in Rivet City that nobody even dared to enter. It had a suspiciously citrine mist that hovered in the room, and it would make you feel itchy and warm. And yet, it didn't make anyone irradiated, and was, according to Preston, perfectly safe.

Misty liked the room, and sometimes used it as her own. She liked the mist, even though it smelled weird. It reminded her of herself. The mist, not the smell.

The room would have been silent if it were on land and not swaying and creaking in the water. That was good though; it would have been distracting otherwise.

Misty pulled the red thing from her pack gingerly and spun it around in her hands. She fingered the smooth, bloody-looking skin and plucked at the stem at the top. It didn't look like the skin should be eaten, but Misty didn't have her switchblade to slice it off. So, she shrugged and bit into the skin.

The red thing didn't taste metallic or salty, like blood. It was a sweet, crisp, clean flavor, and solid, unlike punga that was a gooey gel on the inside. And it was _cool_. Everything Misty had ever eaten was warm and tingly with rads, but this red thing was not. Misty pushed the chunk against the roof of her mouth, pressing sweet juices out to the sides and draining the red thing of its fluid. Misty sucked on that one bite of red thing for about two minutes until she finally swallowed. When she looked down at the apple, she saw that underneath the red skin was a browning white inside. Misty took her time eating the red/white thing, savoring each individual bite, pressing all the chunks dry in her mouth until there was no flavor left.

She ate around the spherical fruit-or-vegetable until she got to the core. When she realized that she could not bite into the center of it, she wrapped it in a napkin and placed it back in her pack. Misty felt the urge to write all of this down, the essence, smell, and feel of the red/thing.

It had to have a name. None of the scientists had mentioned any names of the food, but then again Misty had never stuck around long enough to hear them talk much more about it.

All Misty felt was pure jubilation. Maybe she could call it Jubilation Fruit. Or Vegetable, because she wasn't sure what a fruit or vegetable was.

Misty shrugged and zipped up her pack. She would find out what it was someday. She planned on trying more fruits and vegetables; they were something she could get addicted to.

Maybe she could get a job as a botanist. She wanted to learn so much more about these fruits and vegetables, and anything else like it.

Misty licked her lips. Stealing and fruits and vegetables were two addictions she hoped she would never cure herself of.

**Author's Ending Notes: I hope that this inspired you to eat some apples, carrots, potatoes, or blueberries. Actually any berries will do, despite that they're not in my story. Remember, fresh produce will **_**not **_**irradiate you. In the game. All fruits and vegetables in your grocery store aren't bad either, so go out and buy some! They're healthy! And please don't steal them, like Misty. I'm not encouraging that.**

**I hope this story was enjoyable for you to read, because it wasn't enjoyable for me to repeatedly write "fruits and vegetables" like it were one word. Does anybody have a count of how many times I said "fruits and vegetables"? **

**Please visit the "review this story" link below and put me in a good mood. It would be really valued.**

**Am I rambling yet?**

**Thank you for reading! Have a great day!**


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